


Communication Breakdown

by jujubiest



Category: Supernatural, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Ackles/Collins Polycule, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dean Winchester lives in Jensen Ackles's head rent-free (literally), Episode: s15e18 Despair - Castiel's Confession Scene, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, RPF, Season/Series 13 Spoilers, Season/Series 14 Spoilers, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, See End Notes for Additional Warnings, no beta-readers we die like whatever shame I had left prior to writing this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29669601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: After a hunt and in the midst of grieving Cas, Dean suddenly wakes up trapped in the mind of an actor named Jensen Ackles.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Jensen Ackles & Dean Winchester, Jensen Ackles/Danneel Harris, Jensen Ackles/Misha Collins, other relationships mentioned
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sinnabonka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinnabonka/gifts).



> Happy birthday Sinnabonka! This is the MOST ridiculous thing I've ever written, easily.

Dean didn't notice anything odd at first. He woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling, but that was nothing new. He'd been out on a hunt with Sam, and they had crashed at the motel room around 2 a.m. after a day of fruitless searching. And sure, this ceiling was nicer than he remembered their motel room's being, nicer than he was used to in general. But that didn't ping anything for him, at least not right away.

What did freak him out, though, was when he tried to move and found he couldn't. His arms and legs just...weren't obeying his commands.

"What the fuck," he muttered. "Sammy!" But...no words came out of his mouth, either.

That's when he truly started to panic.

That's also about the point when the guy whose body he was stowed away in woke up.

 _Woah, hey_ , said a voice in—his?—head. It was similar to his own voice, but...softer somehow. Not as deep and not as...angry? _Uh...Dean? It’s Dean in there, right?_

"Once more with feeling: what the _fuck_ ," was Dean’s reply, and again his mouth made no sound.

It felt like possession, except...backwards. Like _he_ was the one who didn't belong. It felt wrong. And at the same time, like he'd been here before.

The man whose body he was apparently riding along in sat up and sighed. _His_ mouth actually made the sound, Dean noted with some annoyance.

 _Hey, not my fault,_ the guy said, or thought at him. Dean noticed that even though he could hear the words, he didn’t hear the guy speak aloud any more than he heard himself when he tried.

He also noticed whoever-it-was didn’t seem all that shocked to find a disembodied voice in his head.

"Where am I?" Dean asked, cautiously, half-afraid of the answer.

 _You're in my head, man,_ the other voice said. _I mean, y_ _ou're always n my head. I talk to you all the time. This is the first time you've ever talked back, though. Gotta say, I'm not lovin’ it. I'm probably having_ _some kind of breakdown_ _right now._ The man laughed at that, rubbing his hands over his—their—his?—eyes. The laughter, unlike his words, made noise.

"Okay," Dean said, drawing the word out. "You seem freakishly calm about that." It would figure, him getting body-snatched by some psycho _after_ the hunt was over.

 _I heard that,_ the voice said mildly. _And_ _no, I wouldn’t say_ calm _exactly_ _. But apparently I've spent so many years talking to my, uh, imaginary friend that he_ _finally_ _started talking back. And that's...concerning, sure._ _N_ _othing a little therapy won't fix._ Dean felt his shoulders shrug.

"Hey, I do _not_ need therapy," Dean snapped. The other voice chuckled.

_Yeah, you_ would  _say that._

"Why do you talk like you _know_ me? Who the hell are you?"

The owner of the voice let out another laugh, this time one that was half-sigh.

 _This is so weird,_ he thought at Dean. _It's like that meta-episode we did back in season six. But weirder. Uh...okay, I'm Jensen. I'm an actor. And you're Dean Winchester, the character I play on--_

"--that _stupid_ TV show," Dean groaned. "Oh fuck me."

 _You know,_ the voice—Jensen—said, _you never cuss this much in the script._

"Well excuse the fuck out of me," Dean replied. "Sorry if I forgot to keep my fucking language P fucking G after waking up in some fucked alternate reality where my fucked-up fucking life is a goddamn _fucking_ TV show."

_...Point taken._

"So how the hell do I fix this? And why is this even happening? Last time I was just...you. Or in your body."

_Yeah,_ _can’t say I’m sorry that’s not happening. This is weird enough as it is._

Dean would have glared at him, if he had eyes of his own to glare with.

"Oh, sorry, am I putting a wrinkle in your perfect life of getting paid obscene amounts of money to play pretend?"

 _Rude, but fair,_ Jensen said, his voice the mental equivalent of a shrug. And wow, he really didn't get ruffled at anything, this guy. Dean was starting to actually hate him.

_Anyway, I gotta get ready to go ‘play pretend,’ as you put it, so can you quiet down for a bit? Don’t really want the anger mismanagement version of my own voice in my head while I shower. As for how to fix this, I plan to book an appointment with my therapist. You could...I dunno, theorize about this all being witches or another archangel fucking with you. Or...you could just call for Cas._

It wasn’t just that it was Cas’s name. That on its own was bad enough, when Dean hadn’t said it aloud in more weeks than he cares to think about. When he refused to talk about it even with _Sam_ when he brought it up. But there was also something about the knowing way this Jensen guy said Cas's name. Like he had any right to be that familiar with it when his name and his memory was all Dean had left.

"No,” he said, almost shouted, voice sharp with pain. “I can’t.”

 _Yeah,_ Jensen sighed. _I figured_ _you’d say that_ _._

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?!"

_Nothing, nothing._

But there was a thought, quiet, that slipped out before he could quite stop it.

_Guess art really does imitate life._

Dean decided he’d rather not know. He tucked Cas’s name away, safely unspoken where it belonged, in some warm, dark corner of his mind he didn’t visit very often. He hoped the guy would leave it alone, and to Dean’s surprise, he did.

So Dean humored him, staying quiet as Jensen—what kind of _name_ was that, anyway—got up and got ready for the day. Of course, the minute he was out of the shower he seemed to forget he’d asked for silence himself, keeping up a steady stream of one-sided conversation as he went about what, to Dean, seemed like a heinously fussy (and luxurious, he did _not_ allow himself to think with some measure of envy) morning routine.

Being in Jensen’s head was _weird._ Dean wondered briefly if this was what it was like to be normal, then quickly discarded that thought. Normal people weren’t this happy this early in the morning. Normal people did not smile at themselves in the mirror like they genuinely liked what they saw while they fixed their hair. Normal people didn’t _have wholeass conversations_ with the disembodied voice of the character they played on TV, but having decided that he was going to fix the situation with therapy, Jensen seemed oddly content to ramble at Dean like they were old friends.

_So, what season are you on right now?_

“What _season_ am I on?”

_Oh, right._ _Sorry._ _What year is it for you? What’s happening in your_ _life_ _right now?_

“Why do you wanna know?” Dean hedged, suspicious.

_Because I’m wondering if our lives are on parallel timelines, like whatever’s happening in the show is happening in your life...or if you’re at a different point entirely, or even in a different_ story  _entirely. It would...answer some questions for me, I think._

“About whether you’ve gone totally loony tunes or just have a serious case of character bleed?”

_Something like that._

“Okay, well...I just got back from a hunt with my brother. Nothing big. Shapeshifter therapist, if you can believe that. Though it turns out the therapist wasn’t actually the one killing people.

_Wait...shapeshifter therapist? So that means…oh._

Dean really didn’t like that oh.

_I’m sorry,_ Jensen said after a long moment.  _I...that was a rough time for you._

Was meaning it was better now? Was meaning it’s the thing that finally sent him over the edge? Was meaning…

Dean was suddenly and abruptly exhausted, despite having only been awake for about an hour at most.

“I really hate this,” he said, quietly. It was the least defensive he’d been with Jensen so far.

_I don’t blame you. I think I’d hate it too, if there was some guy in my head who talked like he knew about my life. Sorry...I’ll try cool it with that. I just…_

“You just what?” Dean said, but there was no anger in his voice this time. Maybe it was thinking about Cas, maybe it was being a disembodied _presence,_ he didn’t know. He just didn’t have it in him to hold onto much else but sadness for very long these days.

_I know you think of me as a stranger, but to me? You’re like a friend. Like...someone I’d be if I was cooler, or braver, or more confident. You’ve been a part of my life since I was like, twenty-five. I met some of my best friends and_ both  _loves of my life while I was playing you. You’re like...family._

Dean didn’t have any clue what to do with that, but Jensen didn’t seem to expect him to do anything at all. He left Dean alone after that. While he finished getting ready, while he headed to a car and drove down still-dark streets to a studio lot. While he sat in a makeup chair and slowly became Dean.

Dean tried not to watch, tried not to think about how becoming him actually required aging this guy, making him look tired and sad and careworn.

That was him, though, wasn’t it? Tired and sad were an understatement.

He looked away. Floated in Jensen’s mind. Tried to lose himself for a bit in the oddly soothing strokes of a makeup brush over his face, without thinking too hard about the circumstances surrounding the feeling.

At some point, he slept.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean watches Jensen work.

When Dean woke, he was staring down at his boots. He tried to blink, found he still couldn’t, and groaned.

_Sorry,_ Jensen thought at him.  _I swear, once I’m done shooting for the day, I’ll get this figured out._

“Pretty sure you getting therapy isn’t gonna do jack shit for me,” Dean said, but there was no heat behind it. “What’re you doing now?”

_Getting into my Dean clothes,_ Jensen said.  _Uh...your clothes, I guess._

Dean took a closer look at what was in front of and around him. It was…weird.

They were his clothes, alright. Not just _like_ his clothes, either. They were _his._ They felt like his. Jeans, black t-shirt, denim shirt, jacket, boots. The boots were Dean’s favorite. Not his favorite _brand,_ not his favorite _style..._ they _were_ his favorite pair of boots. He knew every scuff mark.

It was surreal, and not in a good way. The feeling mixed uneasily with whatever had Jensen so worked up. Dean could _feel_ the nerves rolling off him as he finished tying the boots onto his feet.

“Dude,” Dean said finally. “What?”

_Uh._ Jensen thought, very articulately.  _I have a scene in a few. You might wanna...go back to sleep. If you can._

“A scene? Like...a scene from my _life_?” Dean wished he could go back to sleep, he _really_ did. Better yet, he wished he could get the hell _out_ of this guy’s head. The last thing he wanted or needed was to see some pampered actors playing out scenes from his shitty life. He didn’t think he could take that kind of self-examination, quite fucking literally.

_Sorry,_ Jensen said.  _It’s...it’s kind of your future? The time you mentioned, it’s a couple of sea—uh, years ago now for me. So anything you see is stuff that hasn’t happened for you yet._

“Great. That’s just...great.”

Jensen didn’t say anything else right away. Dean didn’t either. He didn’t know what _to_ say. He didn’t have the first idea how he was going to get out of this mess, either. And some small part of him couldn’t help but worry about what might happen if Jensen _did_ somehow manage to exorcise him. Would he wake up in his own body, in his own life? Would he wake up at all?

He wasn’t even sure what answer he wanted to those questions.

_Hey,_ Jensen broke into his morbid thoughts at last.  _Can I ask you…?_

“Knock yourself out.”

_Do you regret any of it? I always kind of...play you like you don’t. At least...you don’t regret hurting yourself. Cas, or Jack, or Sammy, they’re a different story. But you never give a damn if it’s you that gets hurt._

Dean was temporarily distracted  from Jensen including  _Lucifer’s son_ in  the list of people he cared about hurting by just how  _sad_ he  sounded.  It made  Dean f eel uncomfortably guilty.  He didn’t know what to do with some  near-stranger a sking if he regretted all the ways he’d fucked himself over for the people he love d.

He figured honesty couldn’t hurt, though.

“I...it doesn’t matter. As long as my family’s okay, I can recover from anything.”

_I figured you’d say that._ The sadness  in  Jensen’s  voice hadn’t dissipated at all.

“Well, if you know so damn much, why’d you bother to ask?”

Jensen sighed.

_I guess I kinda hoped I was overdoing it._ _It’s like I said before...you’re not just a character to me. You_ matter.  _Your story matters. You getting a good ending...some peace? That matters, too.”_

Dean shrank in on himself, trying to do the mental equivalent of hiding. He opened his mouth to say something deflecting, but what came out was:

“S’just...not in the cards for me.”

He wasn’t sure if he imagined Jensen’s sigh  as he straightened up, tugged his shirt into place, and checked himself in the mirror.

_Okay,_ Jensen said, and though he didn’t speak aloud Dean could tell he wasn’t really talking to him.  _Okay...you can do this. Make it count._

Then they were leaving the small room they were in, Jensen moving surely through a confusing throng of people and equipment until he reached a familiar room…only it wasn’t a room. It was just a filming set, half-full of people and cameras. Dean did a double-take at what looked like Gabriel, but with more facial hair and looking less smarmy than Dean had ever seen him. Before he could ask Jensen about the guy, though, a familiar flash of tan caught his eye...and held it.

“Cas,” he said. If he had been able to speak aloud, it would have been a whisper. He _felt_ Jensen’s smile, small and fond and a little pained, as he saw what Dean was seeing.

_Yeah,_ Jensen thought at him.  _He comes back to you, Dean. When has he ever not?_

There was something very sad in Jensen’s voice, but Dean couldn’t deal with it. He couldn’t deal with anything beyond the crushing feeling of seeing _Cas_ again, standing right there, in this strange world but _alive._ And smiling.

He blinked, and the illusion was gone.

It wasn’t Cas at all. Just the actor who played him. Apparently not dead in this universe.

_You’ll get him back,_ Jensen thought gently.  _If he’s anything like the Cas in this show, it’ll take forces more powerful than God himself to keep him away for long._

“I saw his wings, they were—” Dean tried to say, disbelief warring with hope. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t _let_ himself. If he dared to hope this might come true and then it didn’t? That’d be the end of him.

Still.

He stared. Stared openly, the way he hadn’t allowed himself to do back home in years. The hair, the nose, the dry lips, the ugly coat. Those eyes. It was _Cas,_ his heart insisted, and he couldn’t tear his gaze away. Not while Jensen talked with both him and not-Gabriel about something. Not when he drew away from the rest of the room, seeming deep in thought and so much like Dean’s angel that it doubled the ache of watching him. Not even when he bridged the gap between himself and Jensen and spoke, shattering the illusion completely with the soft pitch of his voice, completely unlike Cas’s gravel tones.

He stared and stared and stared, some part of his brain vaguely registering that this was only possible because Jensen’s eyes never strayed from him for long either. Outside himself, Jensen handed his phone to someone and asked them something Dean didn’t bother to listen to. Then he moved into the area in front of the camera, Cas—not-Cas—moved to a spot opposite him, and...they started filming the scene.

Nothing about the scene itself made sense. They were at home, where they’d almost always been safe. But someone was outside, pounding on the door. Someone— _she—_ Jensen-as-Dean said, was trying to get in.

“She’s gonna kill you. And then she’s gonna kill me.” Dean shuddered. Jensen _sounded_ like him now. That was his own voice coming out of this body’s mouth. It was disorienting, and it made him feel panicky, watching what was clearly going to be a fight loom closer, knowing he couldn’t do anything about it.

“It’s not real,” he murmured to himself. “It’s not real. It’s not real.”

Then not-Cas started talking, and Dean forgot about what was real for a moment.

His voice was Cas’s voice. His face, the way he moved, the way those eyes fell on him and held him steady when everything around them was falling apart. It was _Cas_ again, and Dean, with nothing to hold onto, nothing physical to anchor him, no way to run, was lost in it.

He could only watch. Just like last time, and the time before, and the time before. He stared in speechless horror as Cas told him about a deal with some entity that lived in the Empty. A deal to save Jack, again with the kid driving Cas to his own destruction. He explained that the terms of the deal were that he’d be taken when he let himself be truly happy. And how he never knew what that moment would be, because...because…

“The one thing...I want…” Cas said, voice breaking and Dean breaking right along with it. “It’s something I _know_ I can’t have.”

And the way he looked at Dean when he said that? It made him want to cry, to crawl away and hide. To fling himself back into hell, take it all back, every moment he spent doing this unspeakable, unforgivable, unintentional thing: teaching an angel how to love so badly that they would choose to love him.

Oh, Dean knew. He knew what was behind the long looks, the rare warm smiles, the lingering clasp of a hand on his shoulder. He knew what was behind his own eyes and hands lingering places they had no business being. He’d just told himself it wasn’t worth it, that he wasn’t worthy. That it was a kindness, holding back, giving Cas a chance to come to his senses.

And he was right, wasn’t he? Because here he was, one broken Dean from a world where Cas was dead already watching from inside another Dean as Cas prepared to throw himself on the pyre again, all for him, always for him.

He’d been blaming the kid all this time, because it was easier than admitting the truth: it was him. It had always been him. It was _his_ fault Cas had been fighting alone. _His_ fault Cas had this burning need to prove himself useful. _His_ fault Cas was so screwed up in the first place that he gave a damn what a waste like Dean thought.

_Stop,_ said a small, quiet voice in his head. Jensen.  _Stop it. Listen to what he’s saying, for once in your life._

Dean tried to shake the head he didn’t have control over. It was too much. Cas was too close and Dean had nowhere to run, and this, _this_ was going to be what broke him at last: watching a facsimile of his angel, his best friend, his hope and a wish he didn’t even allow himself to name, finally break their years-long silence only to be taken from him one more time.

 _I mean it, Dean,_ Jensen insisted. _Really listen._

And because he had no choice...Dean did.

“...you think that hate and anger, that's..that's what drives you, that's who you are. It's not. And everyone who knows you see it.”

He wanted to open his mouth. He wanted to say _no, you’re wrong._ He wanted to shove Cas away from him, far away, somewhere he could be safe from the sucking black hole that was Dean’s life, Dean’s poisonous love. But he couldn’t move, and he couldn’t speak, and Cas just kept going.

“Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love. You raised your little brother for love. You fought for this whole world _for love_. _That_ is who you are. You're the most caring man on Earth. You are the most selfless, _loving_ human being I will ever know.”

The smile that broke across not-Cas’s face was one Dean had never seen before. He was damn sure he’d never seen his angel cry. But it twisted like a knife in his gut anyway. Something about it rang a little too true. Something told him this is what it really would look like, all pretending tossed aside. He looked so _human._

Dean felt the tell-tale sting of tears and couldn’t even tell if they were from him, or from Jensen.

“You know, ever since we met, ever since I pulled you out of Hell...knowing you has changed me.”

“I know it has,” Dean tried to say, and couldn’t. “I know, and I’m so sorry.”

“Because you cared, I cared. I cared about you. I cared about Sam, I cared about Jack...I cared about the whole world because of _you_.”

The laugh that broke free after those words was the saddest sound Dean had heard in his life. The words that followed quickly overshadowed it, though.

“You changed me, Dean.” He sounded so _happy_ , and Dean wanted to scream.

“I’m sorry,” he said to no one who could hear. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry! Cas, I’m so, so sorry!”

“I love you.”

And now there were hands on his face, a thumb swiping a tear from beneath his eye. Cas was so close, his eyes were so blue, lit up with light and tears and a fierce shining _joy_ Dean wished he could reach out and hold, and keep.

He-and-Jensen leaned forward, leaned into that touch…

“Cut!” A familiar, strident voice rang out, and everything seemed to freeze. For a moment, Dean-and-Jensen hovered in the split-second just before a kiss.

Then not-Cas blinked, and shook himself, and laughed, soft and a little sheepish. And just like that, the spell was broken.

“Jesus, Mish,” he heard Jensen say from what seemed like very far away, a hand reaching out and pulling not-Cas in, closing that distance. “You _killed_ that scene.”

“Thanks,” not-Cas—Mish—said, his voice back in its higher register again. He leaned into Jensen like he might fall over without him. Dean barely registered any of this. He was sinking, falling further and further away every second. It felt like falling asleep, but in fast forward.

He felt Jensen think something at him, tinged with worry. He tried to answer and found he couldn’t form words. His vision swam.

For the second time that day, he slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I know there was almost no touching in the confession scene. I'm going with the increasingly plausible idea that a much more intimate and emotional take (or takes) exists somewhere.

**Author's Note:**

> Some canon-typical ableist language from Dean. Some worryingly flippant treatment of one's own mental health from Jensen. No part of this should be taken seriously.
> 
> The main premise involves one character being trapped as a disembodied voice in another character's head, so if that could be triggering for you in any way, please be aware that this is a continuous thing throughout the fic.


End file.
